


This Ugly Face

by Coffeedormous



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Garrus romance, Gen, Green ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffeedormous/pseuds/Coffeedormous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Shepard changes the world by creating a symbiosis between organics and synthetics, one particular turian feels very much alone. But maybe he is not alone after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ugly Face

I.  
Garrus has been sitting in his favorite Afterlife's corner for at least half a day's cycle. He waved the bartender for another round and stared around gloomly. One of the asari dancers was gently but insistently pushing her new client, some young human marine, to the vip alcove. The poor sod looked positevely terrified.  
After a week at Afterlfe dancers finally gave up on Garrus as valuable client, so now he could sit there all day and get drunk in peace.  
The bartender slided a glass to him.  
\- Thanks, darling.  
\- Yeah. Hey, admiral, don't you think maybe it's enough for today? It says here that the number of these has gone up to two-digits. Might go to your head really bad, y'know.  
\- Don't you “admiral” me, Seline. What do you think I'll do, pick up a fight? You know how quiet and peacefull a client I am. After all, I'm a regular.  
\- Yes, Garrus, you are a regular, and this is kind of the point. Shouldn't you be on some big-ass important spaceship, inspiring people to rebuild after the war and all?  
\- Nah. They got plenty of that, so I can just sit here and enjoy my shore leave. Vacation, I mean. Might make it a retirement, actually. But then again, what I'm gonna do? Drinking and shooting is pretty much all I'm good at. That, and calibrating, of course. - he chuckled.   
He closed his right eye and looked around only with his left one, through the visor. He liked to do this when he was very drunk. His intoxicated mind and bluish visor together made his vision extremely obscure and dizzy, so among the sploshes of electric colours he could imagine all the faces and sights he could possibly want to see. This shining corner of the stage could be his workbench at Normandy, where he spent most of his time between missions. This smirky asari could be Liara. That young krogan picking a fight at the door could be Grunt. This N7 marine girl coud be...  
He stood up so abruptly that his legs nearly gave him up, shovering the glass down. It broke with the soft kling which was almost lost in the surrounding noise. “So much for a pleasant customer” - muttered the bartender under her chin. - “This was shiny new.”  
He didn't answer and started to make his way through the crowd, his head strangely empy, trying not to lose the sight of the N7 armor.

His old instructer on Palaven always told them: no fraternisation with a fellow squadmember. If you're at a long mission and both of you need to blow off some steam, go ahead, but don't let this get to you, or you'll get all sobby and emotional and useless. And a good turian military can't afford to be useless.  
Fraternisation, my ass, he thought then on Normandy, waching her leave after that talk they had. Never was a good turian anyway.

Barely keeping himself from swinging aside, he finally reached her. With the last bit of his phisical and mental strength he put his hand on the N7's shoulder and turned her around.  
Her. It was her and...not her. Familiar features of her face were too steady, too right, scar on the forehead a tiny bit too short, eyes too blue. Then an understanding came to him, sudden and clear. An android.  
He stood silent and still. She looked at him, not startled but a bit confused. She started to talk and he sighed with relief: the voice was not hers, unfamiliar, with tiny metallic overtones, similar to EDI's.  
\- Sorry, sir. I believe you have not seen the likes of me around yet. There are some.. models, created in honor of the Commander.  
He continued to stare at her.  
\- I carry this body with great respect, sir. In a way, I am a walking memorial to her. I collect and store all data I can find about her, to preserve it for future generations. She's a icon, a hero. Actually, I'd say she is our hero even more than she is yours. Because of her I and others of my kind are alive and free.  
He still couldn't speak and just stood there. Finally he shook his head.  
\- Sorry, er... miss. Didn't mean to..you're..doing the good thing, I suppose. 'Scuse me, I should be going now.  
\- Oh wait, aren't you him? You are, aren't you, you're admiral Vacarian! - he heard her say as he turned and walked away as quickly as he could.

 

II.  
It was the next day. Or night. Or the day after that, he wasn't sure. He had long left Afterlife because even its darkest corners weren't dark enough. He vaguely remembered pulling himself into some shady hole at worker levels and giving the owner the sum of credits which was likely enough to buy the place out, just to be left alone here with the boose for..how long it has been he couldn't recall at all.  
Empty bottles of numerous kinds surrounded the armchair he tucked himself into. Airconditioning was faulty, and the smell of alcohol and sigars was mixed with something even more revolting which probably came from waste collectors.   
He closed his eyes, sighed and opened the right one; the shining from the visor hurted his sore sight. He was slowly closing the eye and slipping into a koma-like sleep when the waivy lines at the visor screen started to resemble...letters? Ridiculous as it would be, he tried to focus on the letters.   
“And here I thought you looked really ugly with that scar”  
He froze as the words dissappeared, and the cursor appeared instead.  
Oh, great, - he thought,- should've seen it coming, actually. Well, why the hell not..  
\- Hey, commander! What the hell took you so long? - he said out loud.  
“You know, stuff. And trying to figure out..stuff. God, you're wasted.”  
\- Of course I bloody am, I'm talking with the hallucination, am I not? Although I gotta say, I would really prefer seeing you, if it's all the same to my drunk consciousness.   
“Sorry, Garus, but I'm afraid you're not getting any show tonight. “  
He raised a glass. - Too bad, then. Here's to us, Shepard! Fucking world saviours: the dead hero and the drunk admiral. We make quite a pair, don't we?  
“Yeah, we do. But I'm afraid if you want me to stick around you need either to sober up or to get a new scar for this face of yours, because man, you are really damn ugly.”  
\- You're the one to talk, I can't even see you!..

Morning noises of people running to and fro outside the bar finally woke him up. He opened his eyes slowly, tried to sit up and grunted. The head, ugh. Memories came back slowly, piece by piece. We talked, she was here..well, not here, but still.. Reality crumbled suddenly upon him just like this headache did a moment ago.  
Finally he stood up and went to the door, stepping between the empty bottles. And then..  
“You know, Garrus, that's it. As your commander, I order you immediately go out there and get shot in the face, and get a proper scar, because otherwise I'm leaving you, you ugly piece of shit.”  
He stood still for about a minute. Then he took a deep breath and said aloud:  
\- Roger that, commander.

III.  
\- Are you absolutely sure, sir? - said the captain, rubbing his hands nervously. He felt rather strange about this: on the one hand, he had enough troble with admiral Vacarian, both on Palaven and outside of it, let alone the state he was in for the past couple of months. On the other hand, here was one of the greatest heroes of their time, still in his prime, resining from service. And, what puzzled him even more, admiral looked alarmingly happy and agitated.  
\- Afraid I am, yes. Time to have some rest, I think. Avay from all this, y'know...discipline. - Garrus gave the stunned captain a smirk and then gazed at something behind his head for a moment. Captain looked around but didn't see anything.  
\- 'Scuse me, captain, lovely talking to you, but I just came to hand over some papers, because the first ship off the station leaves in an hour, and we...I haven't even decided which ship I should leave on.  
With a chuckle, he stood up, shook the captain's hand energetically and left.  
Captain sighed and sit down. No, he thought, it's a good thing he resigned. The admiral clearly is not well in the head.


End file.
